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(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks after a closed-door session at the Capitol on June 20, 2017. He is joined by Republican Senators John Barrasso, John Thune, and Majority Whip John Cornyn. I n a republic such as that we are rumored to have, looting the nation’s resources, and the money of its people, can be a little complicated. Sunlight can poison the plot; darkness is critical to its successful execution. Just ask Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, or White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Oops, never mind, what was I thinking? Their lips, of course, are sealed. The Trump-branded Project Plunder is well under way. As the week began, Spicer told reporters assembled for one of his press briefings that they could not record it , on either video or audio. Note that this June 19 briefing was held in lieu of what was once a daily, open briefing that has been a staple of White House communication with the public for decades. (Spicer and his...

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 13, 2017. E very time Kamala Harris, the United States senator from California, opens her mouth in a high-profile hearing, it seems that some old white man tells her to be quiet. That’s what happened on Tuesday when, for the second time in a week, an old white man with a gavel stopped Harris, a woman of African American and Indian heritage, when she dared to demand that Attorney General Jeff Sessions explain to the American people the legal underpinnings for his refusal to answer questions put to him by members of the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian officials and businessmen. Prompted by Senator John McCain, Committee Chair Richard Burr interrupted Harris, telling her to “allow the witness to answer the question.” It was also Burr who interrupted Harris ’s questioning of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during a...

(Photo: AP/Rahmat Gul) Security forces stand next to a crater from a massive explosion in front of the German Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on May 31, 2017. A mericans awoke this morning to word of yet another act of lethal terrorism in a faraway part of the world. This time the carnage is in Afghanistan, where at least 80 people have died in a Wednesday-morning truck-bomb attack on the diplomatic compound in Kabul, the nation’s capital city. The attack appears to have targeted the embassy of Germany, the once-close ally of the United States with which our nation now has strained relations, thanks to verbal abuse unleashed on its leaders by President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday. For better or worse, a key player in the seemingly endless U.S. war in Afghanistan is NATO, the alliance of Western powers disparaged by Trump as “obsolete” (a remark he has since kind of walked back), and whose member nations were hectored as deadbeats by the president during the organization’s recent meeting...

(Photo: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Representative Trey Gowdy questions former CIA Director John Brennan during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on May 23, 2017. R epresentative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, has a very important job: preserving the presidency of a man whose campaign featured individuals who had contacts with likely agents of a foreign adversary that intelligence officials say interfered in the 2016 presidential election. That interference favored the election of Donald J. Trump—or, at the very least, was designed to damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Gowdy’s job of late has been getting tougher, what with The Washington Post ’s revelation on May 22 that Trump had called Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, and Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, “urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election,” according to the Post . Then there’s the Senate subpoena of documents...

(Photo: AP/Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) Vice President Mike Pence leaves the Senate chamber on May 10, 2017. On December 1, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI regarding conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and vowed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Mueller's indictment has also fueled speculation about the role played by other senior White House officials with regard to Russia, including Vice President Mike Pence, who on January 15 denied that Flynn's conversations with Kislyak had taken place. The Prospect reprises Stan’s prescient column suggesting that Democrats take a closer look at the vice president’s role during the presidential transition. I f Donald J. Trump loses his grip on the presidency, his logical replacement will be Vice President Mike Pence, the religious-right stalwart and favorite of the...